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Praça Euclides da Cunha
Praça de Casa Forte

1935, Recife
Landscape architecture: Roberto Burle Marx

From 1934 to 1937, Roberto Burle Marx was director of parks in Recife, responsible for the renovation and redesign of the city’s green spaces. Recife is the capital of the northeastern state of Pernambuco, the birthplace of Burle Marx’s mother. In the Praça Euclides da Cunha, Burle Marx created a cactus and succulent garden with plants from the Caatinga region. Aiming to highlight the native flora, he also wanted to expand park visitors’ knowledge of plants, on the model of the botanical garden.

In the design of the park grounds at Praça de Casa Forte, Burle Marx still relies on the French garden tradition. The square central area is symmetrically flanked by two long rectangular pools. His selection of plants includes specimens from the Amazonas region and North African plant species that are native along the Nile. This plant repertoire breaks radically with tradition and met with resistance from the elite. A monument to the Portuguese conquerors is replaced with a modern statue depicting a nude Indigenous woman by sculptor Celso Antônio de Menezes. This was likewise controversial and ultimately led to Burle Marx’s dismissal. He visualised his design in plans and perspective drawings, executed as high-contrast ink drawings.